


white day

by mireailles



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fluff, Kitsune, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 00:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30147897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mireailles/pseuds/mireailles
Summary: Kitsune AU. Jean/Armin. Armin learns about a peculiar human holiday.
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Jean Kirstein
Kudos: 6





	white day

They follow Zeke through the dense fog.  
  
His twin tails trailing along the forest floor, disturbing the fallen leaves. The fog starts to dissipate and Jean expects Zeke to stop, turn around and tell them to find their way back to the village, except he doesn’t. He keeps walking along lazily, like he’s on a morning stroll. They’re following a path and Jean feels his fur bristling as he sees buildings come into view. Though very sparse. Zeke turns a corner and they end up in an alleyway. He’s stopped just outside of it, too large in his fox form to actually wedge himself in. But he nods his massive white head and Armin seems to understand.   
  
He slips into the alleyway, Jean follows suit, feeling self-conscious as Zeke’s eyes are on him.  
  
“Give me about ten minutes and then you can try to find your way back,” he says.  
  
“Okay,” Armin says, the notepad strapped to his back, bouncing.  
  
“Good,” he says and then he takes off, leaving them alone.  
  
Jean sits on his haunches as Armin slips off the notepad from his back. He manages to dislodge the inkpot wedged in between. He dips his tail into the inkpot and starts scribbling down something on the notepad. Jean winces, once when they’re both younger--Jean shyly comes up to him, mistaking him for a vixen and remarking how beautiful his fur looked. Armin thanking him shakily, tail tucked in between his legs. Years from that encounter and Jean still thinks that, kinda, because his fur is so beautifully white with a strip of brown on his back. Watching the tip of his tail become black from all the times he’s used it as a brush, Jean shakes his head.  
  
“We can probably try to find our way back now,” he says.  
  
Armin looks up from his notepad. “Alright.”  
  
He caps the inkpot, slipping the notepad first, then the pot on his back. They slip out of the alleyway, Jean leading and Armin bringing up the rear. He puts his nose up, trying to discern Zeke’s scent from the millions of foreign smells. He barely notices as Armin’s trotting out of the alleyway. He turns his head right to left, then starts moving to the left.  
  
Jean gapes, runs to catch up to him. “Hey Armin, don't just go out on your own like that.”  
  
Armin looks up, surprised. “Sorry.”  
  
“We gotta find our way back to the village.”  
  
He flicks his tail. “Zeke said we could explore around if we wanted to.”  
  
“I suppose but we still need--.” He doesn’t get to finish because Armin’s already turning left, disappearing from his sight. He trots off to the corner Armin’s disappeared to and almost bumps into him as a result. “Armin!”  
  
Armin turns. “Sorry,” he says, sounding distracted.   
  
He slips off the notepad and inkpot from the straps and Jean can only step back and watch as Armin starts to jot down some text from the storefront. He tilts his head at the display window, decorated with reds, whites and pinks. He squints at the text trying to make it out.   
  
“Valentine?” he says, swishing his tail.  
  
Armin takes a step toward the display. “It looks like it’s for a holiday.”  
  
Jean turns to Armin. “Can we go now?”  
  
Armin frowns. “I still want to take a look around.”  
  
Jean sighs. “Fine but make it quick?”  
  
Armin nods, slipping back the notepad and inkpot on his back. They walk along the street, buildings spaced out. It’s not really Armin’s fault, everyone in the village’s already picked their partners: Connie with Sasha, Eren with Mikasa. Though, Eren begs his older brother to place Armin in their team, Zeke--surprisingly, doesn’t bend to his brother’s whim this time. He says it’s a tradition to go in pairs.   
  
They walk down to the edge, Armin flicks his tail, whether it’s from frustration or something else entirely, Jean doesn’t know. They turn back and surprisingly, Armin’s leading the way. He turns back to the corner where Zeke abandons them.  
  
It’s almost sunset when Jean returns to the village, both Sasha and Connie are snide about it.  
  
“Took you long enough, Mr Record-breaker.”  
  
“Shut up,” he spits. “Armin decided to take a detour.”  
  
They’re grinning cheek to cheek but still rubbing (uncomfortably) against him. Neither are well known for having any sense of control over themselves and they fall on top of him after dinner. Jean huffs indignantly as they’re piled around him in his own house. He doesn’t mind, ever since his mother’s passed on, the house has been large and lonely.  
  
Two days later, a package sits on his doorstep. It’s wrapped up in fancy red paper and Jean feels the material in his hands. He tilts his head, starts to unwrap the packaging. He frowns when he sees a large red bow on the box. Everything’s red and inside the box are small chocolates.   
  
He spends half the day eating chocolates from the box when there’s a knock on his door. Armin’s right beside the doorstep when he answers the door.  
  
“Oh, good,” Armin says, much too close for Jean’s comfort. “You got the chocolates.”  
  
He’s smiling and it makes Jean’s chest tighten. “Uh, yeah,” he says, face smeared with chocolate. “What’s it for?”  
  
“For Valentine’s Day,” he says. “Zeke says people give chocolate to those you admire on Valentine’s Day.”  
  
  
Zeke mostly grumbles when Jean, in his foxform disturbs him from his nap.   
  
He stares out from his mountain of white fur, only one eye visible and voice rumbling. “Humans invented the holiday to sell candy, mostly. But it’s just to give out candy to someone you like and then on White Day the person reciprocates.”  
  
“White Day?” Armin asks, eyes going wide. He’s somehow found his way beside Jean. “When’s that?”  
  
Zeke sighs, shifting. “It’s somewhere in March.”  
  
The idea to reciprocate Armin’s gift doesn’t come from Jean but from Connie and Sasha mostly hounding him about doing the right thing. So he manages to sneak back into the human village and with the small sum of yen he’s managed to scrounge up (with Connie and Sasha sharing the cost of it) he buys a small box of chocolates for Armin which Sasha then wraps up. Though Sasha tells Jean to deliver the chocolates himself.   
  
Armin’s eyes light up when Jean flashes the package at him. He takes it in his human hands and starts to unwrap the gift. It takes Jean a second to realize Armin’s not interested in eating it. Instead, he’s staring at the box eyes still wide in wonder. Jean shifts from one foot to the other uncomfortably.  
  
“Are you gonna eat it?” he says.  
  
Armin looks up, shakes his head. “I don’t know.”  
  
“C’mon it’s chocolate.”  
  
Armin bites his lip. “Will you share this with me?”  
  
Jean sighs and watches Armin’s expression deflate. “Alright, alright, just don’t get upset over it.”  
  
They walk into his house and sit down at the table. Armin carefully unwraps the package, opening the box. They share out the chocolate, Armin lets him pick first. It’s a good tasting box of chocolate and he starts to feel warm when they finish it off. Putting his elbows on the table, something his mother would’ve never allowed him to do, he laments. Armin gets up and dusts himself off.  
  
“Guess I might as well get going,” he says.  
  
“Don’t you want to stay for tea?” Armin asks. “I already boiled the water.”  
  
Jean sucks his cheek in. “Sure, I can stay for a little while longer.”  
  
He ends up staying for dinner at the very least. It’s already dark outside when Armin finally lets him go, he’s walking up the pathway to his house when Connie and Sasha tackle him. Both in their fox forms and panting excitedly, peppering him with questions. He shoves them off in his own fox form.   
  
For better or worse it becomes a tradition.  
  
Sometimes they switch it up, Jean buying chocolates for Valentine’s Day and Armin buying for White Day. He starts spending more time at Armin’s house, it’s cramped mostly because it’s a library combined with a house. His mother tells him once that Armin’s family’s in charge of the archives. Not just scriptures and literature but records of births and deaths, going back centuries, to the time when humans and kitsunes co-existed.   
  
The only contact Jean’s ever had with Armin and his family is when he takes over the grave stone business from his mother. He chisels grave stones for Zeke’s victims nowadays. When he’s not doing that, he’s helping Connie and Sasha planting and harvesting crops.   
  
They start spending more and more time together outside both Valentines and White Day. Eren looks on, fur bristling but doesn’t say anything about it. Whether it’s because of Mikasa or his own volition Jean doesn’t know. He ends up proposing during the lantern festival at the end of summer.  
  
The lanterns floating down the river and Armin’s eyes bright, trailing the paper lanterns on the water. Jean asks Armin to marry him. His eyes go wide and he shakily replies yes. They both watch the lanterns floating down the river as Eren and Zeke (in his human form) place the remaining ones in the water.   
  
Armin leans up against Jean, entwining their twin tails together.  
  
He’s sneaking past Zeke with a box of chocolate in his mouth when Zeke shifts from his spot near the Sakura tree. He makes a sound like he’s snorting, one yellow eye on Jean. He huffs. “You don’t have to keep doing that.”  
  
Jean stares down at his snout and the box chocolates, he flicks his two tails on the ground. “I want to,” he mumbles.  
  
“Fine,” Zeke sighs, shifting back like he’s preparing to sleep.  
  
Jean walks up the path to his house, the one Armin and him had decided to stay in. Lights still on, he reverts back to his human form, hides the box behind him before he knocks on the door. Armin opens it, clutching his robe close to his body. Jean flashes the box. Armin’s eyes light up as soon as the light catches it.  
  
“I know it’s a little early but Happy Valentine’s Day Armin.”  
  
Armin embraces him. “Happy Valentine's Day Jean.”  
  
On an early March morning, Jean wakes up to a small heart-shaped box on his side of the table. Scrawled on it are the words, ‘Happy White Day.’ He gathers up the tag and places it off to the side. Then he pulls off the ribbon and gently pulls off the tape at the bottom.   
  
  
It’s harder getting out of the house this Valentine’s Day with two kits under the age of one but he manages to sneak out of bed without waking Armin and the kits are fast asleep in their own beds. It’s still early dawn when he reaches the human village. The clerk looks tired and disinterested as he places the yen on the countertop.  
  
The kits are already awake when he opens the door to their house. Paige is sitting, chubby fingers on the table and burbling. Armin’s cooking something on the stove, most likely pancakes from the smell. Elise is running circles in the living room in her fox form, like Jean, she’s inherited a grey-black stripe running down her back.   
  
“Jean, is that you?” Armin calls out, never taking his eyes off the pancakes.  
  
Jean leans down and gives Armin a peck on the cheek. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he whispers.  
  
Armin flushes. “You didn’t have to,” he says. “I can’t go out this White Day.”  
  
He’s looking back at Paige now with her hand in her mouth and Elise still racing across the living room. Jean’s looking back too, hand still gripping the small box of chocolates. “It’s alright,” he says, finally. “I got all I wanted this White Day.” 


End file.
